Needs - Khalid Hussain

Needs

I've been thinking a little more about this topic lately, from different perspectives.

I've usually thought of "needs" as attention, support or assistance from other people toward me. No question that I can easily come up with a general verdict of failure when it comes to that, despite whatever limited successes there have been (some of which I undoubtedly take for granted).

But, looking at this from the perspective of the astrological studies I've been doing lately, there are needs that have to do with the typical functions of planets in signs, and that tend to play through the lives of individuals. Even though astrology is often spoken of in terms that are philosophically rather crude (if not outright corrupted or nonsensical), the notion of needs playing through the lives of individuals resonates not only with the philosophically unusually sophisticated work of Rudhyar, but also with some concepts in ancient and modern philosophy. For example, Sartre (playing off of both Hegel and his successors such as Husserl and Heidegger) wrote (as usually translated into English) of the In-itself, the For-itself, and the For-others.

With these ideas swimming around in my head, it occurred to me that one of the "needs" articulated in my natal chart is to experience a vivid sense of compassion for individuals and to try to channel that energy into my relationships with them. That has its uses, but this "need" can easily come into conflict with a need to receive attention, support, pleasure, etc., from others in my relationships with them.

From my office window today I saw X crossing the street, probably in order to buy himself something to eat on his lunch break. When I see him, I usually check in with myself to see if I feel anything in particular about it, and then I tend to just turn my attention back to my own business. This time, however, I looked back at him (as he was walking in the direction away from me) and I questioned why it was that I may have developed the strong attachment to him that I did. Apart from the issue of some kind of charisma--or, at least, the ability to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness in some people--it would appear that the conditions of his biography may have drawn me intuitively to him from the beginning. In a sense, he was a perfect match in terms of someone toward whom to feel a sense of compassion.

There is something undeniably stimulating about those kinds of feelings: they have a tendency to bring to the fore aspects of myself that are often vague and rather unintegrated. The problem is that the promise of happiness or fulfillment that they seem to hold out tends to be nullified by the destructive aspects of such people's behavior. Ever since knowing X, I can never so naively underestimate how fucked up someone can be.

I think that this plays into my curiosity about Robo-man as well. The difference is that the physical evidence I have had lately of X's continuing presence around my work environment serves as a reminder that I need to avoid conscious involvement with people who stimulate that kind of curiosity.